


Shuri, One Day Later

by MissIzzy



Series: Walking Behind With a Bucket [17]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, Ficlet, Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 19:25:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16248257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissIzzy/pseuds/MissIzzy
Summary: When she came to the Ancestral Plane.





	Shuri, One Day Later

“Allow the heart-shaped herb to grant the powers of the Black Panther, and take you to the Ancestral Plane.”

The liquid is cool, and thick, so thick she shouldn’t even be able to swallow. Once, Shuri teasingly asked her brother what vibranium tasted like, and he smiled and said, “Like cold soup.” He didn’t mention the pungency that now fills her mouth and throat, and she can’t keep herself from choking. But it’s not cold for long; it’s warm, and then hot. And it floods her, takes her over, her body buckling under the strain of it, until she can barely hear the murmur of the shamaness calling her father and brother, having apparently decided she needs them both; she’s struggling to breathe, and to bear the feeling of  _power_  that courses through her next.

Then she can, and her body relaxes as they bury her, so much soil, where did they even find it all, when there’s still so little of the gardens restored? But the first memories she sinks into are too violent. Having not seen her brother’s actual death, she instead sees Killmonger hurling him down over the waterfalls, followed by the battle they fought, and then her companions crumbling to dust before her. The memories of her father are better; Shuri remembers being five years old, and hanging from his neck, though she also remembers his corpse returned to Wakanda, the news that one man was responsible, and then another, and the first instead placed under her care-she received the news of his death along with that of T’Challa’s, and of so many others.

And then the soil dissipates, and she finds herself standing in a place much like her lab, until she steps out of it and directly onto grass-covered plains. She doesn’t have that far to walk before she comes to a tree where the black panthers perch. “T’Challa!” she exclaims, as one of them jumps down.

But it is not her brother whom he turns into as he touches the ground. Instead, she stands before her father, dead these two years. He opens him arms, and she hugs him tight, as he whispers, “Shuri, my daughter.”

“Papa,” she murmurs back, and she doesn’t try to stop the tears, flowing freely just at seeing his face again. But when she pulls away, she has to ask, “Where is T’Challa?”

Then she sees how troubled he looks. “That is the strange thing, my child. We know what has happened, the battle, and what happened after it. And those who were killed in the battle itself did come here, as did…others who have died today.”

Such as, Shuri knows, the man who wouldn’t yield even when she begged him to, desperately wanting no more death. She’s struggling to forget the contempt on his face when she did, or the madness when he moved to strike again, until she gave the death blow more in defense than anything else, or the sight of him dead in the water at her feet.

But after a brief pause, her father just continues. “But those who died right after, turning to dust? None of them have come here.”

Shuri’s mind immediately starts racing. “But then…they might not be dead? We need to find out where they are then! They could be anywhere in the universe…or maybe even some alternate dimensions, maybe those do exist…the prince from Asgard and his raccoon companion talked about the gauntlet a little; they said one of the stones was called the soul stone…what if it’s just their souls have been taken somewhere else, somewhere terrible? If I can just figure out where to start…” She’s already turning back towards her lab.

“Shuri.” He says it softly, but in that firm voice that when they were younger always got his children to obey. Shuri stops.

“I know what you want to do,” he says gently. “What you would do normally. You would go in there, you would work day and night, and you would stop at nothing to save him, and half of Wakanda, and half of everyone else in the universe as well. And if you were not now Queen, you could.”

She gets the point, of course: “You’re saying that as Queen, I have other responsibilities. But this is half of our people!”

“And you don’t know where they are, whether they are alive, or dead with their souls held captive, or any idea what to do first. If you had more information, or a potential plan, that would be different, and perhaps, in the future, you might get that. But right now, you instead have the other half of our people, whom you can do something for, where no one else can, and who need you.”

“I don’t know what to do for them either,” she snaps, knowing it’s childish of her, but it feels all too true.

“You have a difficult path ahead of you,” he says, still in that gentle but firm tone. “One full of harsh choices; this is not the first one you’ve had to make even today. That is always true for a ruler, but it is especially so for you. You must surround yourself with people you trust, people who know the things you have still to learn, but they cannot carry the whole burden for you.”

He moves to hug her again, and once again she cries in his arms, but for a different reason now. “I don’t know how…I never prepared for this, not like he did…I can’t just abandon him, and the rest of them.”

“You don’t have to entirely. When the current crises die down, there may be time to look into it. Maybe you’ll even know more by then. But you must remember what now comes first, and you’re certainly smart enough to know what that is.”

She does, and much as her heart pulls at her, almost turns her back to where she still feels she belongs, when her father lets go again, she stays where she is. She doesn’t want to leave here, either, when she’s looking at him, doesn’t want to go back to the world when he isn’t there anymore. But all she can do is try to commit this, likely her last sight of him before her own death, to memory.

Then, back in the caves, the young Queen of Wakanda is surging up out of the ground, and she lets the shamaness help pull her to her feet.


End file.
